


The Judgment

by River_of_Dreams



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hope, Gen, Post-season 9 fix-it, could be canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 13:58:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8164369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/River_of_Dreams/pseuds/River_of_Dreams
Summary: When Gadreel bought Heaven its second chance, he didn't expect to wake up again.Or to find himself face to face with his first victim.
Maybe he hasn't paid enough, yet.Maybe he has paid too much.Maybe both.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers, naturally, up to the ending of season 9.
> 
> Warning for gore and angst.
> 
> Just a heads-up regarding Heaven in this scene: I don’t believe it’s a physical place, which also means that when we see angels in their vessels in Heaven in the show, and frankly anything physical, I consider it symbolism for the sake of the human viewer. That said, I will partially use the same symbolism in the fic (mainly for Gadreel’s surroundings), but I will try to mostly keep the physical sensations corresponding to angelic true form, not a vessel.

He regains consciousness.

It’s a startling experience, if not perfectly new, to wake after an unknown amount of time and find himself in a different position than he last remembers (now draped over rubble like a discarded rag). It’s all the more startling to realize he shouldn’t be able to wake up at all. He remembers his last moments clearly, perhaps more clearly than he perceived them when he lived them. Remembers more than enough to know he should be dead; yet here he is.

He feels strangely empty, scoured clean like a burnt out husk, but also weightless; not fallen and human, then. Around him the remains of the cell open into the passageway in dead silence. A possibility occurs to him, creeping in like ice from the edges of his consciousness, but all the scorched, electric stench of an angel’s death hanging in the air is his own, as far as his still confused senses tell him.

He hasn’t killed Castiel in his attempt to free him, then.

Carefully, he gathers himself, limb by limb, drawing inward and up, shedding gravel and dust until he is sitting and better able to take stock of himself. He feels sluggish, as if every command his mind sends out to his body traveled at a leisurely stroll instead of the instant flash he’s accustomed to.

It takes him a while to realize what else is strange.

He’s not in pain.

Puzzled, he looks down, not at all sure what to expect.

His chest is a mess of tissues and bone fragments, the lines of the sigil deepened into bloodless gouges, a crater in the middle. When he touches it with a hesitant hand, his shredded skin and flesh give way, but it’s like touching somebody else, if without the pang of sympathy that would accompany such probing. Seems his capacity to sense anything in that area was cauterized, but that doesn’t explain the absence of blood. The fine layer of dust covering him head to toe is dry.

What is he, now?

And what can he expect if he stumbles out of here? Clearly, nobody returned to collect his body. Is it too soon yet, or does it mean that whoever won didn’t care? Or even know to look for him?

“Disoriented?“

He whirls around. Or tries to, anyway. His lazy, uncoordinated limbs nearly send him sprawling face-first onto the floor as he attempts to turn and crouch at the same time. He has to gather himself again, his heartbeat quickening, shooting blood through his veins like fire, all the alarm bells in his head ringing. The voice was far from friendly, coming from behind and above him, making it as hard as possible to face the speaker. To see him at all while he’s working to overcome his own weakness.

He knows this game. Oh, does he know this game. But this time, his defenses don’t come up, the humiliation doesn’t bring the fury, his fear fails to let itself be masked with indifference or bravado. This time he trembles and barely dares to look up, because this time, this man, has all the right to play.

Kevin Tran watches him, his lips a stern flat line, his eyes dark, and the white fire of his soul is cold, freezing, all the radiance of a Prophet but none of the warmth of God’s touch.

Not a soul at rest in Heaven, this. Perched on the highest point of the broken wall, he resembles a falcon ready to dive for his prey. Gadreel swallows, settles gingerly on his shins, withdraws the support of his arms in a conscious effort at balance.

All that time, the Prophet doesn’t speak, making Gadreel wonder whether the question was as rhetorical as he thought. He licks his lips but holds his silence. The questions – what happened, what am I now, is Heaven reopened? – crowd behind his teeth, but he won’t ask them. He won’t make himself appear any weaker.

“I was told you sacrificed yourself here,“ Kevin Tran starts at last. “Blew yourself up trying to free Castiel. I had my doubts, thought maybe you tried to save your own skin somehow and it backfired. But, I admit, this looks pretty intentional. Was it?“

It would be the easiest, the safest, to fall back on old reflexes. Keep his face impassive, his mouth shut. Give his tormentor nothing to work with, let him aim the barbs blind.

But he owes something here.

“…yes.“

“Regretting it already?“

“No.“

“Really?“

Gadreel opens his palms up on his thighs. “It was the only chance.“

A chance for Castiel to win. A chance for Gadreel to escape. He’s not sure anymore which was more important at the time. He knows he grasped at the last opportunity to be a hero, or at least to matter, but in hindsight, he can’t deny the clogging panic that led him perhaps even more firmly to his end.

Or what he thought was his end.

“There were two of you,“ the ghost remarks.

“Castiel was more important.”

Among a hundred other reasons.

“Than you? You forced Dean to throw him out when you were hiding in Sam, didn’t you?“

To his shame – first out of many. He doesn’t reply.

“Come on, Gadreel. All you thought about all the time was yourself. You are a coward, an asshole and a murderer – and suddenly you turn like this? Don’t tell me it was worth it. Don’t tell me you’d do it again.“

Gladly – to escape this session if nothing else. In all his years of torture, physical and mental, nothing compares to this. The Prophet’s every word sears like a live coal, burning steady and excruciating as it sinks in. It has something Thaddeus’s taunts never did: a core of truth.

He takes a breath against the agony.

“I would.“ It’s sheer stubbornness, nothing else, but he’s not – can’t be – refuses to see himself as despicable as his victim paints him. “I knew I’d pay for my mistakes when I returned to the Winchesters. The cause was greater than me. I’d do anything – I did everything to help Castiel win, to save Heaven and humanity both. I don’t regret it.“

Sometime during the speech he gathers the strenght to meet Kevin Tran’s gaze again. Its coldness makes him wish he didn’t, but he holds it anyway.

“What if I told you you’ll stay like this? A ghost of an angel, really, aware of every second, unable to move on, unable to make anyone see you, hear you. Free you. Still worth it?“

It doesn’t sound like a question. It sounds like a sentence, and Gadreel realizes he is trembling.

“How would that be possible? Angels do not have afterlife.“

He is grasping at straws and he knows it. The look in the ghost’s eyes doesn’t thaw.

“Welcome to a human’s world. Most people don’t know what to expect when they die. That you don’t believe there is anything after death doesn’t mean you are right. Now answer the question.“

He tries to still the vibrations running through him, to no avail.

“Will Heaven be restored?“ That’s a better hope to hang on; still not enough. His voice comes out scratchy.

“I don’t know.“

He could weep if he had a vessel. The ghost watches him, then relents:

“It has a chance now. Castiel is a good guy, and he has a lot to teach those angels. He could make it work.“

Loneliness. Isolation. The worst parts of his long years of imprisonment, stretched out to eternity. A punishment harsher than he could bring himself to believe was just, even face to face with one of his victims. A sacrifice far greater than the one he’d intended to make. Would it make a difference, to take it back now, to plead for his life – or the oblivion he thought he would get? Would he plead, if it meant taking back also the consequences he aimed for, the very same that made his suicide a sacrifice instead of a sin and a desertion? The one decision he’s made lately that didn’t turn to evil, far as he can see?

He bows his head.

“Yes.”

“Yes what?“

“It was worth it. I’d do it again.” I hope.

He is afraid to look up in the long silence that fills the cell afterwards, terrified he will find the ghost gone already.

“Oh for the love of- I’m surrounded with self-sacrificing idiots! Always messing things up with the best of intentions, then running around trying to mop up their mess no matter the cost, making it even worse. Repeat _ad nauseam_. Screw it! If you only thought for a second before you- I remember you burning me out of my skin, you-“

“I’m sorry,“ he murmurs when it becomes clear the Prophet gave up on finding a fitting expletive. It’s inadequate, he knows, but he has nothing better to offer. He isn’t surprised the ghost’s expression doesn’t soften at the apology. He hangs his head again, even if a small, traitorous voice in his heart tells him it’s not fair, that he always paid for his mistakes a higher price than he deserved. “I’m sorry.“

“I know you are. You wouldn’t believe how much it pisses me off. If you were a regular dick, this would be much easier.“

He doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing to say.

“I get to decide, you know? Perks of being the last Prophet, or something. I just wish they extended to not getting murdered. Or at least being able to come back. Getting to decide what to do with my killer isn’t something I’d ask for, but here we are.“

Gadreel freezes. That wasn’t an idle exercise, then. Did he just condemn himself? Or was the ghost’s exasperated outburst a good sign? He chances a glance up, and becomes caught.

“You aren’t quite dead,“ Kevin Tran tells him grimly. “But you aren’t really alive, either. I guess you could call it being in a coma after a botched suicide attempt. Wrong weapon to finish you off cleanly. Anyway, you aren’t getting out of it on your own.“

The irony isn’t lost on Gadreel, but he doesn’t comment on it.

“So how about I make you a deal? I let you live, and you protect my mom.“

Gadreel swallows, waiting for the catch.

“I’m not stupid. Sam and Dean have their plates too full to care. They always do, and she’s just a civilian. She’s not useful.“ There’s no mistaking the bitterness of his tone. “So I send you down there, as restored as I can make you, and you protect her for me.“

“Yes.”

The ghost doesn’t look happy with his consent. Gadreel can’t find it in himself to blame him, praying the Prophet wouldn’t find some last minute better option.

“I mean it. No big stuff, no wandering off to save the world or anything else. You’ll protect her no matter what.“

“Yes.“ He bites back the ‘please’ that wants to follow. It’s not the first time he finds himself at someone’s mercy. He knows begging doesn’t help.

The ghost eyes him still, disfavor and distaste clear in his expression as if Gadreel was one of those misshapen attempts at sentient beings who crawl all over Purgatory. Unclean, unworthy.

Maybe he is. Maybe that’s what he’s made of himself. It doesn’t make him to want to live any less.

“I guess at least I’ll have someone to haunt first if I turn vengeful,“ the Prophet finally mutters.

Gadreel turns rigid.

“If you do…“

“I said, protect my mom.“

“No matter what?“

“Don’t make me spell it out for you.“

There is terror hidden under the annoyance, as well there should be. Gadreel concedes the point with a small nod.

With a last disgusted grimace, the ghost lets go of the topic.

“Alright. Um. I’m not sure how this is supposed to work-“

The words fade into an incomprehensible, irrelevant murmur in Gadreel’s mind right about then. A Presence so strong its mere echo fills the room to bursting comes from within the unsuspecting Prophet, as if a great gate opened a crack and let in a flood. It strucks a chord that vibrates down to Gadreel’s marrow, the sensation all-encompassing like an earthquake, terrifying like a firestorm, sweet like home. Twice before he felt the same Presence this strong, this close: once when he was created, and the second time when he was tasked with guarding Eden.

He does weep, then.

The next instant it’s gone.

Blinking, he finds himself back in his vessel – the same vessel he occupied before he entered Heaven, the soul within sleeping deep and safe. His feet are bare, the sensation of grass and soil and dried stems against his skin overwhelming in its complexity, the world’s history hidden in every grain of sand and he can read it-

He has his full senses back.

He has everything back. Millennia of torture, the Fall, all washed away. He can feel his wings, tucked away but strong and healthy. He can manifest his sword with ease, none of his old, deliberately inflicted scars hindering him.

Only his sins remain.

As his impressions and perceptions gradually resolve into a backyard of a small house with a single human life inside, he realizes where he must be. Whose garden this is.

The last time he was at his full power, he guarded two human beings, just two. Ultimately, he failed.

He’s a little less naïve now, perhaps, and much less trusting.

He guards only one person this time. The task is his penance, his undeserved third chance.

He takes it for the challenge and responsibility it is.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I keep writing ways in which Gadreel could have lived. Sue me :P  
> Feedback of any kind is most welcome.


End file.
